


Picnic - Or How kids never expect to marry the kind of person they end up with

by Nightalp



Series: The family you choose [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, My first attempt on real fluff, Odin's Good Parenting, Sister Complex, all three of them, and Frigga's a good mother too, children having serious conversations about marriage, for all of his kids, just he really is a good father in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 06:08:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1499501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightalp/pseuds/Nightalp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Family Odin is out for a picnic, an the three boys (Thor, Balder, Loki) happen to speak about how they think the love of their life should be.</p><p>Really, just fluffy kids having fun. A<br/>And a sister complex.</p><p>Can be read as standalone</p>
            </blockquote>





	Picnic - Or How kids never expect to marry the kind of person they end up with

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is just some fluff for easter, because I wrote so much serious stuff in the last time. Hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing.
> 
> I imagine Thor ending up with Jane Foster and Loki with Tony, but that's really unimportant in this fic (though it might make their descriptions even funnier)

When the golden light of the Bifrøst faded around them the three small brothers were already dashing forward, running over the green meadow they had arrived on. Even the halfheartedly called “Boys!”, by there mother behind them couldn’t rein them in in their play, and the chuckle of their father and the calming words they heard him say to his wife only made sure that they knew to act with his consent.

So they ran on, their guards trying to catch up to them - for planet Asgard is a dangerous place, very unlike the room station they were living on, they had learned. Not that they were too concerned - there were still people living on the planet, farmers and scholars and some other, and this was just a picnic trip for the royal family, so there wouldn’t be anything harmful around.

Not that they would mind - they were aesir boys, they liked the taste of danger.

And the planet was so much more fun to explore than the secure and tamed station for it had been abandoned to regenerate after a catastrophe so the animals and plants might procreate again in abundance. Or at least that’s what their teacher had tried to teach them, for the three boys vanishing in the undergrowth right now only cared about one thing: adventures.

But even the children of the mightiest king of the nine realms couldn’t escape the watchful eyes of their body guards, and when they had spend their energy in running and playing _ warrior and beast _ \- the younger brothers united against Balder always, always winning - they came back to where the rest of their family now sat on a blanket.

Their father was talking softly to his wife, feeding her fruits and small bites of bread while she sat there, weaving garlands of flowers with their younger sister.

When the boys, sweating and exhausted and still so full of energy, savaged the small laid out meal their father chuckled.

“Have you slain enough monsters for the day?”, he asked lightly.

“No, father”, Thor truthfully answered. “But we grew hungry.”

And Loki, the youngest of them, added, his eyes sparkling with mirth: “And the monster grew so lazy that it was no hardship anymore to hunt it down.”

Their father laughed, as did the others, while Balder sprang up and chased his younger brother around the blanket which only caused more laughter.

“Want to hunt monsters, too!”, the young girl suddenly called, and Loki stopped to pick her up and let her fly up in the air as much as his young strength allowed. “You are too young, Idunn”, he told her lovingly, but that is not something any child ever want’s to hear.

“I’m  _ big _ !”, she insisted. “I’m bigger than Wali!”

And that had all the boy’s faces grow serious. “Who is this Wali?”, Thor inquired.

Idunn, proud to have her brother’s attention, stopped her tantrum and grinned. “I’m not telling you! That is my secret!” And when Balder made a gesture as if to grasp her and shake it out of her she run away, dashing over the meadow as fast as her chubby legs allowed.

The brothers did not need to think about it when they followed her as fast as possible, trying to grab the kid that just managed to dodge them all - she had been chosen by the higher powers at a very young age, and even Thor, who now slowly grew into his power of storm and thunder and virtuousness could not easily capture the avatar of youth and childhood embracing her nature.

At long last they managed to drive her where they wanted her, so that Balder might grab her and keep his hold on her, at which point she just fell apart giggling.

“I’m big! I can hunt monsters!”, she said, and Loki, not thinking at all as a kid does in this age, accused her honestly: “You are a monster, Idunn.” 

And when she screamed: “I am not! Idunn is no monster!” he relented and explained: “A good monster, like the dragons, then. Do you remember the dragons, Idunn?”

And yes, she did. These beasts with their bodies like saurians, or, when they became older and wiser, the likeness of a snake with wings as broad as half the palace of Asgard, their scales shimmering in all the colors of the rainbow and their eyes as big as Idunn herself were hard to forget.

So she nodded, enraptured what her brother would make of this.

“Dragons are wise and mighty, but they are also of a very different intelligence than we”, Loki told his sister, smiling when he saw them all listening with such rapture even though his brothers knew this story as well as he. “So when the first dragons and the first aesir met they did not talk to each other, but tried to kill because they saw danger when looking at the other. Only when an aesir boy found a dying dragon woman, and she gave him her egg so he might raise her kid, and when he found the girl responding to him in a way that no animal could, he became aware of how intelligent and strange dragons really are.” He leaned forward and flipped against the girl’s head. “These first aesir called the dragons  _ monster _ s because they could not understand them, and they were so mighty and beautiful that they caused them great fear. Such a monster you are, Idunn, like the dragons have once been in the eyes of the aesir.”

She giggled then and buried her head in Balder’s thighs. “And I will be bigger than you?”, she asked and Loki smiled. “You don’t have to be big to be dangerous”, he said softly, stroking her head but thinking for himself that for him, she would always be his little sister that needed his protection.

It seemed that his brothers agreed with him. “So who is this Wali then?”, Thor asked, hugging the girl from behind so she might not run away again.

But this time she just grinned and told them: “The stable master’s boy. He’s terrible!”

And at that she had their brother’s undivided attention. “Has he hurt you, Little Butterfly?”, Balder asked as was his due as the oldest, his voice holding threat and anger.

Idunn however only shook her head. “He’s  _ terrible _ ”, she explained. “Because he will never let me play with his dog! He says Skuld will hurt me, because I am so small!”

At that the brothers found themselves troubled. For on one hand, the boy was right. But on the other no-one but them was allowed to tell their sister that she was too small for something.

Well, them and their parents and uncle Vé.

At last Balder thought to distract the enraged little girl. “He is just jealous”, he said to the girl, and when she looked up at him with a doubting expression on her face he laid his hand upon his heart and said, his voice very serious: “I swear upon my honor that I am not jesting. It must be jealousy, because he knows that such a fair lady as you would never wed him, and so he is angry at you.”

The girl giggled, not fully comprehending what her brother had told her but understanding that she had been complimented. But as this seemed to be the end of the topic she bored and sprang up to pluck flowers that she might weave into another garland to wind around her arm.

“The stable boy? Wedding Idunn?”, Thor teased, but was quickly hushed by his brothers who feared another outburst of Idunn’s temper. 

To distract him Balder asked: “And what fair maiden would you wed, then? A fine princess, maybe the girl the Ljósálfar brought to court by their last visit?”

And Thor was so easily distracted, laughing loud and full of disgust. “No, not such a girl! She was just ... she only wanted to talk of  _ flowers _ and  _ dresses _ and  _ jewels _ ! If I have to marry then I will take a warrior maid, someone who will fight with me in battle and not sit at home and expect me to talk about boring ...  _ things _ .”

“Like mother does?”, Loki teased, and Thor spluttered and said, indignantly: “That is  _ mother _ !” as if that was a whole other thing.

And maybe it was, but Balder cautioned him: “If you are to be king of Asgard” and they all knew that this was most likely, for only one can become king of Asgard who had been chosen by the higher powers and Balder was too old to expect powers to be given to him anymore, and Loki had been told from a very young age that it was unlikely for him to become an Avatar because of the circumstances of his birth (no-one ever explained what that meant, but he knew that it meant he would stay a prince for the rest of his life) and Idunn as the Avatar of childhood was not fit to become queen of Asgard herself.

So Balder continued: “When you are to be king of Asgard, you have to know the wishes of all of Asgard, not only the warrior’s. And a fair maiden who will sit at home and lead your household, one who is intelligent and knows the ways of the cosmos and the mysteries of science and magic, will help you keep Asgard safe.”

But Thor just laughed and then sprang up, hugging is youngest brother from behind. “Why would I want a girl for that, if I have Loki? He’s more knowledgeable than most of the girls his age, and a strong warrior on top of that, too.”

Loki smiled, proud for the praise and the trust his bother placed in him, and Balder sighed and grinned. “That he is”, he agreed and smiled at their younger brother.

“So, Balder, tell me, what shall your bride then be like?”, Thor asked now. “That fair lady you just described for me?”

But Balder shook his head. “As I am not to be king, I would not need the bond to a woman to father a child and continue the line, and I would choose a strong warrior to be at my side.” A blush came over his cheeks when his younger, more inexperienced brothers looked curious up at him, and he decided not to share with them the dreams he had of the young captain of his troop, whose brown hair was curling in the wind in the most delicious ways, and whose eyes were sparkling in his dreams and whose hands, strong and sure, made his trousers grow tight. Instead he turned to their youngest brother - the one who was adopted in their family, even though Balder knew that he never was to speak of this -, who listened to them even though he was still too young to really have dreamed of girls or boys in any fashion, and who looked even younger than other aesir his age, and he asked: “And you, Loki? Have you dreamed of someone to be at your side?”

And Loki ducked his head, blushing prettily, before answering, shy and reluctant as they weren’t wont by their youngest brother: “I ... I think I would wish for someone to wait for me ... someone who would be joyful when I came home to them, who I would keep safe and warm ...” He did not finish, because a sudden longing arose in his chest, to have someone he did not have to share but could keep locked so only he would see them, touch them. Someone just for him.

But he did not speak his heart, and his brothers just laughed and said: “And we will help you keep them safe” and happiness came over him once again to have such brothers.

But then Idunn returned and threw herself over Balder’s lap - for as the biggest of them he made the softest rest, even with all his added muscles and leathers - and something else came to the brother’s mind suddenly.

“You are not going to wed, aren’t you, Idunn?”, Thor asked, stroking over her honey-blond hair, for once mindful of the garland woven into it. “You’re going to be our girl forever, aren’t you?”

Thoughtfully chewing her lip she looked up, then asked: “Do I get to eat your dessert today if I do?”

They all waited with baited breath - their mother had brought cherry tarte that she did bake with her own hands, and non of them would want to miss their piece, least of all the ever-hungry Thor.

So it was a great surprise to them all when Thor nodded solemnly and said: “I will give you my cake, and you will stay unwed.”

Eagerly Idunn nodded, then returned to weaving her flowers, the whole thing already dismissed as not important anymore, while his two brothers nodded respectfully at Thor, each promising silently to share their own tarte with him.

No-one would ever be allowed to touch their little princess.

No-one.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked. Please drop me a note if did


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